So, here's the basic mission idea:
Some large ships (T9 / Beluga / Anaconda / Corvette / Cutter, depending on faction) ran into some trouble (engine problems / out of fuel / out of supplies / whatever) and are being resupplied via a T6 / T7 / Dropship / Clipper. Stop the resupply, CMDR!
How it would work:
You go to the system in question, and begin your hunt. Two thingswill pop up eventually - the resupply ship, and a signal source containing the stranded vessels.
The supply ship will try to fly to the SS of the stranded ship and drop in. The CMDR can interdict the supply ship and try to kill it (it will try to get back into hyperspace and resume trying to get to the SS), or it can get to the stranded ships.
In the stranded ships signal source, you'll have a number (say 1 - 4) of those large ships, with engines turned off. They can have fighter bays, powerful turrets, and/or maybe some nearby mines for defense, depending on difficulty and payout.
If the player doesn't interfere and just watches, the supply ship will drop in, drop it's cargo at near max limpet range from the big ships. Have the supply ship say something like, "We have company, I'm heading out!" to explain why they don't drop it closer (after all, this only happens if they player is there). The big ships will then deploy their fighters and start firing limpets to collect the dropped cargo. As a "timer" mechanic, maybe either backup for the big ships could eventually arrive, or the big ships will activate their engines once they harvest all the cargo, and fight back hard.
The job of the player is to stop the big ships from loading up that cargo. This gives the player a lot of options on how they want to approach the objective. Take out the cargo? Take out limpets? Kill the supply ship before it drops the cargo? Try to kill all the big ships really fast? Just steal all the cargo for themselves?
This could even be increased in difficulty as a wing mission, by making the resupply ship be in a convoy with escorts and giving the stranded ships their own not-stranded escorts.
I think this is all stuff the AI is currently capable of doing. And I think it would make for a pretty fun mission with a lot of a flexibility in how to accomplish it.
Some large ships (T9 / Beluga / Anaconda / Corvette / Cutter, depending on faction) ran into some trouble (engine problems / out of fuel / out of supplies / whatever) and are being resupplied via a T6 / T7 / Dropship / Clipper. Stop the resupply, CMDR!
How it would work:
You go to the system in question, and begin your hunt. Two thingswill pop up eventually - the resupply ship, and a signal source containing the stranded vessels.
The supply ship will try to fly to the SS of the stranded ship and drop in. The CMDR can interdict the supply ship and try to kill it (it will try to get back into hyperspace and resume trying to get to the SS), or it can get to the stranded ships.
In the stranded ships signal source, you'll have a number (say 1 - 4) of those large ships, with engines turned off. They can have fighter bays, powerful turrets, and/or maybe some nearby mines for defense, depending on difficulty and payout.
If the player doesn't interfere and just watches, the supply ship will drop in, drop it's cargo at near max limpet range from the big ships. Have the supply ship say something like, "We have company, I'm heading out!" to explain why they don't drop it closer (after all, this only happens if they player is there). The big ships will then deploy their fighters and start firing limpets to collect the dropped cargo. As a "timer" mechanic, maybe either backup for the big ships could eventually arrive, or the big ships will activate their engines once they harvest all the cargo, and fight back hard.
The job of the player is to stop the big ships from loading up that cargo. This gives the player a lot of options on how they want to approach the objective. Take out the cargo? Take out limpets? Kill the supply ship before it drops the cargo? Try to kill all the big ships really fast? Just steal all the cargo for themselves?
This could even be increased in difficulty as a wing mission, by making the resupply ship be in a convoy with escorts and giving the stranded ships their own not-stranded escorts.
I think this is all stuff the AI is currently capable of doing. And I think it would make for a pretty fun mission with a lot of a flexibility in how to accomplish it.
